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BitDefender Issue or normal reaction

recently i have been using BIS and have run into some sort of activity which i do not know if it is normal.Almost every other day when it updates it requires reboot. I find it a bit embarrassing though but is this normal ?

"Embarrassing" you say?..................."bloody annoying" is more like it; but I never was noted for my politeness

The answer is no, it is not normal, but I do not think that it is indicative of any infection or imminent system failure. This kind of behaviour is typical of an application "behaving badly" in certain circumstances.

In normal circumstances the majority of security softwares will briefly shut themselves down and restart, to load the latest derfinitions and programs. This is normally transparent to the user, unless you notice that the icon has disappeared from your system tray or shows that the application is temporarily disabled.

On rare occasions the application will tell you that it needs a reboot, but I think that this is more to stop the user from going clicky, clicky, whilst the update is loading, than because the system really needs it.

Usually you will only have to reboot when you load a complete new version of the software. This is because it is going to do a full uninstall and reinstall, and change Registry settings.

In my experience, the most likely causes of your problem are conflicting software or a corrupted installation of the primary application.

What you might try:

PHASE 1:

1. Run CCleaner, to get rid of redundant files. Also use their Registry Cleaner (in the options down the left hand side).

2. Get Aulogics' and Eusing's registry cleaners and run those as well.

3. Check for any files or references to previous AV products and delete them.

4. Defragment your system.

RUN ALL OF THE ABOVE IN SAFE MODE

If that doesn't fix it:

PHASE 2:

1. Download the latest version of your AV (check that the file sizes match those on their site ).

2. Uninstall your AV application.

3. Reboot your system into SAFE MODE and run CCleaner and the registry cleaners.

4. Reboot, and turn off all AV and security products (obviously not whilst connected to the internet). Check this has happened in the "processes" section of Windows Task manager.

5. Reinstall the AV application.

6. Reboot into SAFE MODE, run CCleaner and defragment.

7. Reboot normally.

Out of curiosity, if you download the AV update files and then do a manual update from the location you have put them in, do you still get reboot messages?

Please let us know how you get on; and do not hesitate to ask if you are unsure of what security applications are still running even though you have turned them off from the taskbar.

Cheers

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

It's not normal for most AV applications, but bitdefender is a little out of the ordinary. I have limited experience with bitdefender (I managed a pilot of it for a WinXP build at a corporation I no longer work for), but I know it's not supposed to force a reboot after every update. Iirc it should only require a reboot after the initial installation, however, it is a lot more secure in the white listing mode and there might be a setting in there somewhere that you can configure. I can conceivably see it rebooting after adding or removing entries from the list of acceptable websites and applications (which of course is updated almost daily).

The maintenance Nihil listed is always good, but I'd google around for "bitdefender reboot setting" as well.

Its not odd that any antivirus that needs restart once it has been updated. However, generally most of the antivirus ask for restart only when it has recently installed some critical update. But since your antivirus asks for restart frequently then it must be that your antivirus has been infected. May be some antivirus has infected your antivirus itself. Uninstall it and then reinstall once again. Also check if there is any virus on your computer using some another antivirus software.

There seems to be some confusion here. the OP says he is asked to reboot (Windows) rather than restart (the AV app). All major interactive AVs restart when they update. They have to do this to replace their signature & heuristics files. Rebooting Windows is generally only required when you upgrade to a later version.

I agree that a good move would be to uninstall and reinstall the AV, but I suspect the problem is corruption rather than infection, as the symptoms are a bit too obvious for malware.

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

recently i have been using BIS and have run into some sort of activity which i do not know if it is normal.Almost every other day when it updates it requires reboot. I find it a bit embarrassing though but is this normal ?

It should only be the first 2 or so times that it does that. After the initial updates then it should only prompt for reboots after a product update rather than definitions update. I was recently using BD Total Security 2011 and noticed similar behavior when first trying it out. How many times would you say the program has prompted you to reboot so far after updates and reboots?
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Good point.............so if you do reinstall as suggested, it might want to reboot a couple of times before the new installation stabilises, so give it a chance

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?